“It doesn’t surprise me because ‘whatever’ is in a special class, probably,” said Michael Adams, author of “Slang: The People’s Poetry” and an associate professor of English at Indiana University. “It’s a word that — and it depends how a speaker uses it — can suggest dismissiveness.”

This story clearly shows that words with a dismissive tone and nuance do not go unnoticed by listeners and observers.

Dismissiveness is the primary rhetorical technique used at high levels of anti-rights campaigns such as California’s and now Maine’s referenda on Same Sex Marriage.

So is possibly-feigned ignorance of science or any sort of rational thinking.

Combine all that with advocacy for separatism bordering on apartheid, not even pretending to rise to the level of “separate but equal” that was tossed out as a prevailing legislative principal by the Supreme Court in 1954, before most of us were even born, and you have the recipe for a stirring rendition of hate to be expressed as part of God’s Greater Glory every Sunday in Churches across the country.